Updates on Projects For Fall / Format Changes for Next Year

Hello everyone! 

As usual, I have both good news and bad news. The good news is extremely good. 

First, my novel is almost done! I've nearly completed the full first draft and am now powering through the major and minor edits. My hope was to have it done by the Halloween spooky season but I might miss that window. It will be available first on Kindle Direct Publishing and then 90 days after that free to patrons. The KDP contract says I can't distribute it on my own blogs (which Patreon counts as) until it's had 90 days of exclusivity on their platform. This isn't necessarily a bad thing-- this is basically an entirely new branch of my writing career and the harder I can hit the new algorithm of a new platform, the faster I'll be able to grow that branch. The book is titled 'Rose Window', a gothic horror story with a sci-fi setting. 

Second, the Lincoln Highway trip is a go. I've driven the Thunderbird a few hundred miles now as a diagnostic and it's held up beautifully. It needs nothing more, the money for the trip is already in the bank, and all that needs to happen is simply to begin. So that starts on October 1st! I'll be back around mid-November. This will result in two extremely large travelogues: a new Real Life Landscapes of Fallout for the East Coast and the Lincoln Highway travelogue. This is going to be the largest, most ambitious trip I have ever taken so fingers crossed for it. The flipside is that I have NEVER done so much research for a single project so I think the resultant travelogues are going to be leagues better than the previous ones. I get better at these every time I have an at-bat.

The bad news is basically that, in the shuffle, I have been unable to complete another large game retrospective *before* leaving on the trip. I have been working diligently on remaking my Dragon Age retrospectives and wanted to have them done, but I ultimately chose to prioritize my novel and travelogues instead at this time. I put a lot of hours into trying to get that video finished, which means it won't have many hours to go when I get back, but October is literally my last chance to be on the road this year and it's important to me to finish while I still can this year. However, this means that in eleven months of payments you the Patrons will have only seen two completed works from me. I worry that this is completely unacceptable. 

It's only the size of these projects that are causing such delays. I am trying this year to accomplish the largest, most expensive, most ambitious, most difficult projects I ever have. And it's hurting my consistency, I know. This is why starting next year I am pivoting back to medium length (30-90 Minutes) videos. To do this, I will have to omit the spoken special thanks at the end of the videos. I have promised to do this and fulfilled my promise for nearly an entire decade, but 20+ minutes of thanks at the end of a 40 minute video is wildly unbalanced. I will list all the names of Patrons and thank some out loud on a rotating basis but the thanks/credits structure must change to allow me to return to doing shorter videos.

This is important for three reasons: consistency, creativity, and burnout.

1) Consistency: I want to have one video a month for people. This has been impossible doing projects where the franchise is so time consuming it takes me two months to just play all the games. The stress is tremendous-- failure to deliver makes me miserable, and creates anxiety death spirals where the closer it is to the end the less able I am to just get it done. Managing the size and scope of these projects will allow me to do more of them in greater varieties.

2) Creativity: People are tired of long-form. Maybe not you the reader, but a lot of people. I have received volumes of feedback about how grossly bloated my videos have become and how weary everyone is in general about long-form retrospectives. Their moment has passed, and if I don't adapt to the scorn that's building for them I'm going to get swept away on the tide of people's hatred for the format. If *I'm* not enjoying making them much anymore AND no one else is enjoying them either, that sounds like time for a change. Smaller projects would allow me to cover more indie games and different sorts of game experiences I haven't before. It would allow some air into an extremely stagnant room I've sealed myself in.

3) Burnout: I've made myself a joke and a laughingstock with my inconsistent, self-pitying behavior these past few months. I didn't think it was burnout, but that's precisely what it is: I've lost my confidence in my ability to produce good or meaningful work. I am vulnerable to the massive volumes of negative feedback I've gotten about my work this year. I have tried very hard to produce work that's better than what I had done before, but in the effort I created instead the worst slate of videos I've ever done. It is difficult to confront your own failure as a creator and then just keep going, but that's what I have to do. This year has proven that I have lost my touch when it comes to video game criticism, and if I want to continue, I have to dramatically improve. I do want to continue. I want to honor the respect and money people have given me, and not just shit out a steaming pile of self-indulgent bullshit that I expect people to eat with a smile on their face. I *have* to do better. I have to try harder. And I will.

To that end, I am finishing all the long-form projects I have open. That mostly boils down to remakes/expansions of past videos, which I have been working on off and on for months (and in some cases years). I'll be publishing remakes of the Dragon Age videos, the Fallout videos, and the Call of Duty videos, all wrapped up and united in one giant, revised project. After that the pivot to medium length will begin in earnest.

This has been the most difficult year I've ever had running this channel. Which is ironic (if not a little disgusting) considering how, to show for it, I only have *two videos*. And now that gap in releases is going to grow even larger.

All I can ask for is patience and understanding. You aren't at all obligated to give it. Refunds of your entire contribution are available on demand. It's difficult to navigate on my end, because from my perspective, I have worked harder this year than I ever have. I simply have little to show for it yet. If you're willing to continue to hang on and support the channel, I have better things coming-- more diverse projects, more palatable projects. I'm trying as hard as I can to get there, it's simply that the mountain gets steepest at the peak and this is absolutely the most I've ever tried to take on at once. 

I am doing my best. I am trying to honor your donation and do good things with it. Beyond that, I can offer very little. Thank you for your support, whether you choose to continue it or not.